Trending on Twitter at the moment is a hashtag that is getting a lot of attention (obviously: it’s trending).

The hashtag is #DoctorsAreDickheads.

Has it got people’s attention? Yep.

Is it inflammatory? You bet.

And it needs to be.

The shitty thing is that sometimes it takes a loud, brash moment like this for people to sit up and listen. Lousy experiences in healthcare are not isolated experiences. Not being listened to; not being believed; being dismissed; being belittled; experiencing doctor bias – these are all real. These happen frequently.

In diabetes, we hear this from the point of (mis)diagnosis right through to people who have lived with diabetes for decades. How many people were sent away from the doctor being told their symptoms where nothing? How many parents were told they were over-reacting when they repeatedly took their thirsty, constantly peeing, losing weight child to the GP? How many of us are blamed instead of helped when we start to develop complications?  Almost every single person with diabetes I have spoken has a terrible tale to share.

Hashtags like this, which often then become ‘movements’, come about for one simple reason: people are hurting and need to be heard. They don’t happen because an individual has a grudge directed at one other person. They happen, and become magnified, because there is clearly a systematic issue somewhere. One single person may start the discussion, but others see their own experiences reflected in what others are saying and join in the discussion.

Also, hashtags like this don’t happen as a first line of attack. Often, people have tried every other angle: they have tried to reason, asked to be heard, searched for someone they hope will be more sympathetic, used the system in place – the system that is meant to protect them, followed protocols for making complaints when things go wrong, written quiet pieces on their own blogs or in closed community groups in a hope that someone – anyone – will listen. They have tried being polite, quiet, compliant.

Yet they don’t feel heard.

Unsurprisingly, there have been parallels drawn between #DoctorsAreDickheads and #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter. And in exactly as the response to #MeToo became #NotAllMen, and #BlackLivesMatter became #AllLivesMatter, predictably we are seeing #NotAllDoctors.

Suddenly the reason behind the discussion is hijacked. Doctors become defensive; others jump to their defence. And the stories of those who have been hurt, who continue to be hurt, who have sometimes had their lives turned on their head, start to get lost.

The right response to this hashtag is to listen. It is not to turn it around and defend yourself or start to attack those who are sharing their personal stories. It is not to be self-justifying. It is not protect your own interests. It is not to accuse the people sharing their stories as being aggressive, nasty, offensive, attention-seeking or confrontational.

It is to stay silent and listen. It’s to let the discomfort wash over you, surround you, move in and almost suffocate you while you remain quiet and listen.

Listen to the people who have had these horrible experiences. Recognise there is a power imbalance between medical care givers and receivers. Understand how vulnerable some people are when they are sharing their stories – and how vulnerable they were when they were let down by their doctors. And accept that the anger on show is completely and utterly understandable.

Personally, I have had some horrid experiences with doctors. Of course I’ve had some incredibly positive and empowering experiences. I have nothing but the highest regard for my own healthcare team and so many of the HCPs I am lucky to work with as part of my job. I named my kid after my endo because I honestly think that her care and expertise and compassion are part of the reason that I have an amazing teenager accompanying me in my life these days. But this isn’t about celebrating those moments.

It’s about the ones that left me feeling hopeless.

Some I’ve documented on my blog, others I feel I am still too traumatised to talk about. I have felt belittled, delegitimised, stigmatised and made to feel like a fool, a hypochondriac, a trouble maker, an attention seeker by doctors in the past. And I am a confident, educated, Bolshy advocate who understands the system. Imagine for a moment those who don’t, because we’re not hearing from them. Yet.

For every single person using the #DoctorsAreDickheads hashtag on twitter as they share their experience, there are dozens who are not doing that. It is not a loud minority who are being rabble-rousers. What we have seen in the last day or so is just the start.

Could it have been more nuanced? Maybe. Someone suggested that a better option would have been #DoctorsBeBetter, but I guarantee that those who are up in arms about this hashtag would still be crying #NotAllDoctors even if there wasn’t the profanity contained within the current hashtag.

And finally, I have a plea here. Please, do not invoke the #LanguageMatters movement as part of this discussion. Language matters – at least the way that I see it and have been working at for almost a decade now – is about ensuring that the language used when speaking to and about people with diabetes empowers and supports us.

If we want to add a language focus to this discussion it’s this: stop policing the language that ‘patients’ use. In the same way it’s not up to healthcare professionals to tell people with diabetes the language to use when speaking about our own diabetes, it is not for the medical community to tell the ‘patient’ community to tone it down or use different words when we are telling our own stories. We will use the words that resonate with us, within us, amongst us. Because these are our stories. And it’s time, and we deserve, for them – for us – to be heard.